The Last Goodbye
by TheoforeNott4
Summary: Tonks and Lupin must sacrifice their lives for their son and hope that when it all ends, he will be able to live in the world that they dreamt of for him.


The Last Goodbye

Sparks of green and red flew across the grounds. Cries of joy and pain were heard everywhere, making Tonks's ears want to run away. She scurried through the bloody corridor and reached the Hufflepuff Common Room. She knew it'd be safe there. No matter what would happen.

She went to the hidden door inside the barrels that lead into the Common Room. She unlatched the door and ran inside. She was relieved to find the place clean and empty. There were only yellow puffy arm chairs and the painting of Helga Hufflepuff. Darkness spewed through the windows into the Common Room. She walke carefully into the girls' steps echoed against the cold, hard wooden floor. She wasn't surprised to find the room exactly how it was her early years at Hogwarts, she had always slept in the bed in the middle of the room. She grabbed a pillow on the bed. She reached inside the pillowcase and gently put it in there.

"Oh well if it isn't my dear itty bitty niece!" Bellatrix howled as she staggered into the dormitory. Ash was painted on her face in a gaudy manner. Her hair went into disentangled directions. Her dress was ripped and a dark ebony. Her eyes were not filled with horror or anxiety but an exaggerated sense of maniac joy.

"Bellatrix!" Tonks gasped.

Bellatrix laughed manically, "How are you, my little Nymphadora?"

Tonks cringed at her remark, not because Bellatrix had used her real name ,but because it oozed with a sense of foreboding wickedness.

Tonks drew closer to the bed, protecting what she came here for. Bellatrix eyed her speculatively like a cat does to a mouse when it knows it has caught its dinner.

Bellatrix spoke with dripping enchantment, " What'ch ya' got there, Nymphadora?

Tonks stammered, " Nothing of your concern, Bellatrix!"

Bellatrix laughed maliciously as she grabbed her wand.

Tonks thought fast. She fingered her wand and shouted, " Stupefy!"

Bellatrix used the Shield Charm joyfully, as if it was all a game.

"Expelliarmus!" Tonks shouted again.

Bellatrix blocked it again with ease and whispered, " You know, after I kill you, I'll get that old bag Remus too! Then, to finish the set off, I'll murder your _adorable_ little baby boy! Freddy isn't it?"

Tonks stated confidently, "How dare you! You will _not_ touch him, not if I can help it."

Bellatrix murmured, " Ooh mousey wants to play? This should be fun! I should tell you first though, just to be fair, that you'll die in the end,"

Tonks leaped over the beds and flew past the door, "As long as I'm away from you!"

Bellatrix wasn't prepared for this. She ran out of the dormitory and shot spells across the room, breaking the painting of the house founder and exploding arm chairs. Cushioning flew all across the room, making the whole place look like a sick, winter wonderland. Tonks ran out the door, shouting defensive spells as she went.

Bellatrix raced toward her, _"Sectumspempra!"_

Tonks thought fast, knowing that a snake would slither past her soon, _"Aguamenti!"_ Water spewed form her wand over the corridor. Bellatrix slipped and landed on the snake which disappeared into dust.

Tonks was internally screaming for help. She couldn't do this on her own. Bellatrix was a far better and experienced witch than herself. But she wasn't going to run away, she thought. Bellatrix has killed too many innocent lives and Tonks didn't mind being one of them as long as she was the last.

The corridor had opened up into a large room that Tonks had never entered before. It was like a courtyard but a tad different. It was indoors, with stone walls. Ivory snaked its way across the walls and up to the Glass of the windows showed a mixture of colors from sparks outside on the battlefield. Tonks had the perturbing feeling that she was in a fish bowl and that she was quite visible to all. She felt she wasn't the only one in the tank and that a larger, more deadly fish was lurking in the water nearby.

_"Crucio!"_ Bellatrix howled.

Tonks collapsed to the floor, quivering as a pain like a million sharp knives repeatedly struck her everywhere. She felt her blood pumping and her heart crying for help. Sweat beaded down her face and a tear flowed with it. Tonks wanted to just stay there and never get up. She wanted to escape it all and just die, to escape the battleground her world had become.

Then, she thought of Teddy: His smiling face and ever changing hair. His nose, like his father. And eyes like his mother. His cubby face always adorned with a smile. Tonks wasn't going to lose him. Not today. Not ever. And certainly not to _her._

Tonks forced herself to stand, " Stupefy!"

Bellatrix was shocked from Tonks's sudden stance and did not shield herself. Tonks ran forward.

She heard footsteps as she went. Thank goodness, she thought. Then, her heart leaped into thin air as she saw her husband arrive, but it sank back down as she remembered who was determinedly chasing her.

"Tonks!" Lupin cried as he embraced her. He had blood and scars all over his face, even more than before. His hair was a dark, dirty mess. His eyes were lost and frightened, but so strong. He had never looked more handsome in Tonks's eyes.

Tonks cried on his shoulder as they hugged. She wanted to capture the moment forever, to not have to turn around and face the personification of pure evil standing behind her.

"Well if it isn't the werewolf!" Bellatrix spat as she walked calm and limply to the two of them, " Nice one, Nymphadora, you sure know how to pick em! _Crucio!"_ Lupin fell to the floor, grunting in pain and terror. " You know how many times I had to apologize to My Lord about your _unforgivable_ marriage to..._it_? I was a _joke_ to my fellow Death-Eaters!" She screamed psychotically, "_ You two have made a joke of the family! _Well, guess what, the punchline's over! _Crucio!" _ The charm hit the both of them now. True and terrible pain soared through the two like never before.

Bellatrix shouted, " Levicorpus!" Lupin's body went limp as she floated him in air and threw him against the wall with an unforgiving thud.

She approached Tonks. "Oh how proud The Dark Lord will be when I have eliminated you. After we win, I'll be sure to dance around your grave with him."

Tonks made herself face Bellatrix. She muttered as pain played with her nervous system, "Oh, Bellatrix, I feel so sorry for you. You may be dark, Bellatrix, but that doesn't mean that I can't see right through you. I'm so sorry that you can never have what Lupin and I have. Voldemort will never accept you. He's in love with his own ambitions, his own _wicked_, _power-hungry_ ambitions." Tonks cried, "It must be terrible to be so _evil_ for one who is too _corrupt_ to see it. Don't do it, Bellatrix. Don't hate others for the love that they share. Think of my son, your great-nephew! Don't do it, Bellatrix, have a heart... Have the heart that Voldemort would never give to you."

Bellatrix looked so stunned and perplexed that she seemed to forget what she was doing. Her mouth looked like it had too many words wishing to escape, yet none seeming to fit. At last, she found a few, _" AVADA KEDAVRA!"_ A green streak of lightning flew from her wand and into Tonks's trembling body.

As the spark flew into her, Tonks glanced at her husband. He was watching her too. His eyes met her own. In that moment, they both shared all of the final things that they would've shared and never had the chance to. In that moment, they said their goodbyes without ever having prepared them.

Bellatrix laughed again, challenging Lupin's eardrums.

Dolohov had scurried inside the room as her laugh finished, glancing at the corpse on the then glared at Lupin. He smiled monstrously." There's the hound! I've been chasing him for ages! Good show, Bellatrix. I always hated that idiot girl with the gaudy pink hair..."

Lupin shouted as he rose, "SHE IS NO IDIOT, YOU FIEND. SHE IS A BETETR WITCH THAN YOU WILL EVER BE. AND I HAVE NEWS FOR YOU, SHE'S THE LAST TO DIE!" Lupin went to her corpse and felt her soft, gentle hair. He whispered to Tonks, "I won't let you die in vain, Tonks,I won't! Teddy will know about his brave mother and how she fought to save_others'_ lives, not just hers." He kissed her, " I love you." Lupin stood with the killing curse in his mind, ready to use it on Dolohov.

He was greeted with a gigantic explosion of green sparks.

He fell to the floor, next to his wife. The last thing he will ever remember is her hair on his cheek as the life drifted out of him and joined his lost love.

••••••••••••••••••••••••

Harry Potter didn't find what Tonks left in the Hufflepuff Common Room until a few weeks after The Battle. He was sifting through the debris in the Common Room and carrying a bundle in his arms, thinking about what lay ahead of had heard that the Hufflepuff Common Room had stayed mostly intact during The Battle. It was true except for the broken portrait and cushions. He checked the boys' dormitories which were fine and then went to the girls'. There was obvious wreckage. A strand of pink hair in the middle of the room on the floor told Harry it was the place.

Harry placed the bundle on the closest bed and started to cry. Teddy cried too. Harry laid on the bed, cradling the baby. As he backed up against the bedframe, he heard something like a paper being crinkled. He reached into the pillow case uncertainty and brought out a document. In hurried letters read:

The Last Will and Testament of Remus John and Nymphadora Lupin.

At the bottom of the will it read:

And most importantly, we leave our beloved child, Teddy Remus Lupin, our reason to fight for peace and a new world, to my dear mother, Andromeda.

I hope dearly that if Remus and or I do die tonight that Teddy will grow up in a world of joy and safety with all of my loved ones. If he ever shall read this, let him know that I leave this world tonight with the sacrifice of my life for his. Hopefully that's enough and no one else will have to go. I hope that he will never have to watch a world develop into a bloody battle zone like I and his father had to. But above all, I hope he will one day find something worth fighting, and even dying for, and that he holds onto it. And Teddy, please know that no matter where we are, Mommy and Daddy will always love you.


End file.
